Westborough
Westborough opened as an infill station on the Framingham/Worcester Line on June 22, 2002 the same day as neighboring Southborough (to avoid traffic overwhelming one town or the other). The current station is a modern Park & Ride Station with the historic 1899 Westborough depot located about 2.5 miles east of the current station, this depot last saw service in 1960.
The modern Park & Ride station consists of two low-level platforms for the two-track line with mini-high platforms at their western ends. The low-level platforms contain a small, canopied section (across from each other) with simple silver steel structures, along with the mini-high platforms also being fully canopied. These mini-high platforms have retractable edges for the heavy freight traffic on the line that operated until 2013.
The mini-high platforms are located under where the station’s pedestrian bridge is located connecting the two platforms. The pedestrian bridge has chain-linked mesh walls and a roof around both the bridge itself and the staircase/ramps up to it. The pedestrian bridge is accessed via ramps that switchback around two times connecting the high-level platforms with the bridge above. These ramp structures are primarily beyond the ends of the platforms. An intermediate landing in the middle of each of the switch-backing ramps connects with then single mesh surrounded staircase, also connecting to the high-level platform. There are a few benches in the middle of the footbridge, and at the intermediate ramp/staircase landings, since it is a lot of steps or about 700 feet of walking up and down ramps to get from the Parking lot to the Inbound platform.
The station’s only entrance is from along the Outbound platform, where the ramp continues off the high-level platform under the previous switchback to finally reach the level of the parking lot, this ramp provides the only accessible entrance to the entire station leading up to both platforms.
The 488 space parking has a single driveway entrance along Smith Parkway, that provides all access to the station. There are about 25 additional parallel parking spaces along Smith Parkway that had a line of cars when I visited in 2024, although the station parking lot was only about three quarters full. Commuters park along Smith Parkway to avoid the $6 on weekdays, $2 on weekends (as of 2024) parking fee at the station. There is luckily a sidewalk from the driveway entrance that wraps around the west side of the parking lot to the ADA ramp. Along the Outbound platform at the edge of the parking lot is a passenger pick-up and drop area along with a bus stop, all access to the station is towards the front of trains leaving Boston, back of trains leaving Worcester.
Most of the parking is in five rows of spots stretching from the Outbound platform back towards Smith Parkway. There is an additional almost overflow section of the parking lot accessed via a single narrow driveway that splits into four rows of parked cars (with two driveways) along the remaining eastern half of the Outbound platform. In this area a chain-link fence prohibits all access between this parking lot and the Outbound platform.
Photos 1-96 taken on June 19, 2024
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Last Updated: October 8, 2024
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Grafton